Poor Unfortunate Souls
by Star Fata
Summary: They've been cousins before- but they shouldn't remember that. Trouble is, they do. Reincarnation fic.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing except merchandise.**

**Dedicated- To Molten-Ashes, who owns the Black Butler boxset.**

* * *

Albus Severus Potter had always suffered from nightmares. His parents had told him that some nights, even as a baby, he would wake up screaming and crying in terror, and the only way he'd go back to sleep would be if one of them stayed with him.

He learned not to scream as he got older, but the nightmares never left him. There were several- one where he was in a burning mansion, listening to the screams around as he tried to find a way out of the flames. Another had him pinned to the ground, surrounded by white-robed figures, one of them holding a knife. There was a crow, salvation and damnation in one in a manner that only made sense in dreams. An auction hall, where he was on sale. Two figures dressed in scarlet, hair red like blood and poppies respectively. One attacked the other, and she fell, eyes wide and blank.

Dolls- girls who were turned into dolls, their corpses attacking him on the end of string- and one still living. A man jumping in the way of a sword, blood flying. A grotesque puppet, a man and woman hacked into pieces and sewn together. A city, burning. A ship overrun by moving bodies, the Bizzarre Dolls of the Undertaker.

Crimson eyes glinting, and then darkness.

X

Rose Weasley wasn't quite as prone to nightmares as her cousin was- but that didn't mean she hadn't suffered any of her own. A beloved smile vanishing into the cruelties of shadows, three graves, all empty. A man in a top hat, face blank and eyes dull as he sang._ London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down… _She felt her limbs move, but didn't have the power to call them back as numbness dragged her down. A rush of water, dragging her away and down…

But she also had her dreams, of an impromptu ball, a day spent playing in the snow, a Christmas party and an Easter Egg Hunt. A small smile, not the bright one of days gone by but a _smile_…

She knew better than Albus what lay behind their nightmares. She remembered Lizzie. She feared the day that he remembered Ciel.

Until then, she would have to do her best to give him reasons to smile. Not hard, for a girl whose family owned Weasley's Wizardly Wheezes.

X

She'd known what had happened the second Aunt Ginny had stepped through the floo- the furrow in her brow as she glanced backwards, as if she already regretted leaving.

Albus had stepped through next, and his clothes had confirmed it. He was wearing a button-down shirt and shorts, something completely out of place in a modern Wizard's home. Teamed with his 'nice' shoes and socks, all he needed was an eyepatch to be the boy from over a century ago.

And the way he moved- it was Ciel. A nobleman's walk, even without the walking stick as a prop.

She stepped forward, her brightest grin on her face. "Hello Cousin!"

His eyes snapped to hers in shock, and she could see him considering her. He spoke, his voice hoarse. "Hello Rose."

She heard Ginny gasp behind her, even as she threw her arms around her cousin. She hugged him as tightly as she dared, and felt him hug her back with only the slightest hesitation.

This was her Albus- she wouldn't lose him like she had Ciel. Not without a fight. She never wanted him to lose his smile.

X

"Sebastian was a demon." Albus told her later, the two of them curled on separate ends of her bed. "I called him when I was kidnapped. He would serve me until I had my revenge, and then he would have my soul."

Rose nodded. "I remember fighting him when the doll man had me."

"Doll man?" Albus asked, blinking.

Rose hummed pointedly. A few bars of London Bridge and Albus threw his hand up in disgust. "Drossel." He shuddered. "I hate that bloody song."

Rose considered that. "I'm scared of dolls." She admitted. "The eyes… they creep me out."

Albus huffed in amused agreement. "That makes two of us Rose. Between Ash and the Undertaker, I'd cheerfully never hear the blasted word again."

"Quite a statement from a toy company owner." She teased. "Whatever shall we sell?"

"We don't own a toy company anymore." He pointed out with a snort.

She shrugged. "No reason why we can't in the future. The name's up for grabs at least; the first Funtom company went bankrupt in the twenties."

The young former-earl scowled. "What?"

The full stories could wait. She didn't know who Ash or the Undertaker were, and he didn't know what had happened after the contract had been fulfilled. He probably didn't know what had happened in the years before either; she couldn't remember anything after turning sixteen, even though Lizzie had been twenty when she'd died.

In the meanwhile plotting the domination of Funtom Toys over the Wizarding Shopping District could be fun.

X

"The Phantomhive family didn't die with Ciel." Albus stated one day, in what would have been out of the blue if she hadn't known him so well.

"No. Ciel and Lizzie had a son." She told him. "Raised by his mother's family until he was of age, and very well protected by his father's servants."

"Earl Lucien Phantomhive." Albus mused softly.

"Cien." Rose told him. "Edward's memoir said that they called him Cien."

"I'd like to read that, if possible." He said, evenly- but not coldly.

Rose nodded. "I've got all my research in mum's old trunk. I did a family tree for everyone I could."

She wondered if he'd read them. If he'd realise that his eyes, Lily's eyes, came from the Phantomhive family. She wondered if he'd care.

It was a lifetime ago, however real it felt.

* * *

-This came out of three different ideas I ended up scrapping. Hope you like. Will hopefully come back to this idea one day and sandblast it into a proper fic.


End file.
